Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/39

 Rh the active and judicious Harriet performed every domestic task; and, having completely regulated the family economy for the day, was quietly seated at work with her aunt and sister, listening to Hume's 'History of England,' as it was read to her by some orphan girl whom she had herself instructed."

So truly ladylike had the feminine mind grown by this time, that the very language it used was refined to the point of ambiguity. Mrs. Barbauld writes genteelly of the behaviour of young girls "to the other half of their species," as though she could not bear to say, simply and coarsely, men. So full of content were the little circles who listened to the "elegant lyric poetess," Mrs. Hemans, or to "the female Shakespeare of her age," Miss Joanna Baillie (we owe both these phrases to the poet Campbell), that when Crabb Robinson was asked by Miss Wakefield whether he would like to know Mrs. Barbauld, he cried enthusiastically: "You might as well ask me whether I should like to know the Angel Gabriel!"

In the midst of these sentimentalities and raptures, we catch now and then forlorn glimpses